Greater Manchester'sActive Travel Mission
Greater Manchester's Active Travel Mission
Greater Manchester is committed to building a world-class active travel (walking, wheeling and cycling) network.
Our vision for the Bee Network is an integrated, affordable, accessible London-style public transport system - with walking, wheeling and cycling at the heart. The city-region’s vision and plan for active travel is ambitious and the delivery of the active travel network continues at pace.
Active Travel Commissioner Dame Sarah Storey works on behalf of the Mayor, to lead GM’s Active Travel Mission for the region, to enable more people to walk, wheel and cycle through the delivery of five key priorities.
Monitoring progress is a key part of ensuring success. That’s why we share an annual report, so you can see what improvements we’ve made and what’s planned for the future.
Foundations
Three foundations are at the heart of our Active Travel Mission:
Accessibility
Active travel in Greater Manchester is for everyone. It must be accessible for all and built to consistent standards that go above and beyond local and national standards. That means making space on our streets for the right infrastructure and adaptations.
Behaviour change
We have a ‘Right Mix’ for 50% of all journeys to be made by walking cycling and public transport. We’re enabling people to change the way they travel, making journeys by foot, on a bike or on wheels and reducing the number of trips made by car.
Communications & engagement
We’re committed to keeping you updated as we roll out improvements. We promise to make sure our communications are open, honest and easy for everyone to understand, and its simple to find out how to get around actively.
Priorities
Building upon these foundations, five key priorities that are driving the work and focus of active travel over the coming years.
School travel
We want to make sure Greater Manchester schools and other educational facilities can support young people to travel by cycling, walking and wheeling. Whether that’s through school streets, cycle stands or better education.
Infrastructure delivery
Building a joined up active travel network that everyone can use is at the heart of our plans. We’re making sure cycling and walking infrastructure is central to the wider Bee Network.
Joining up with public transport
We’re making sure cycling and walking infrastructure links up with trains, trams and buses. So that stops and interchanges are easy and safe to walk, wheel and cycle to and you have a great journey from start to finish.
Road danger reduction
Greater Manchester has adopted ‘Vision Zero’, where the target is for no deaths or life-changing injuries on Greater Manchester’s roads by 2040.
Access to active travel, including Starling Bank Bikes
We work with partners on a number of schemes, to help communities and individuals get access to cycles and adapted bikes. We also support these groups with grants. With Starling Bank Bikes, we have more than 1,000 bikes for hire - many of them electric.
Providing access for everyone
Whether disabled, getting older or living with a health condition, active travel should be a choice for everyone. One way we do this is through the Streets for All, which has been adopted by all our Local Authorities to ensure accessible standards.
Ongoing work to deliver our Active Travel mission
We’ve made the following ten commitments to help deliver our short term and long-term goals. These will underpin everything we do to improve active travel now and in the years ahead.
Ensure every part of the Bee Active Network is universally accessible.
Deliver a proposal to carry bikes and non-standard cycles on trams, following a pilot in 2024.
Work with partners to deliver the new Vision Zero Strategy and Action Plan (launched in November 2024) to eliminate all deaths and life-changing injuries on Greater Manchester roads by 2040, including pressing for change at a national level on issues such as pavement parking and sentencing.
Publish a plan to expand the Starling Bank Bike hire scheme in Manchester, Salford and Trafford, to more areas of Greater Manchester.
Integrate Starling Bank Bikes into the Bee Network fare structure and app, making it easier for people to make seamless journeys by bike, bus, tram and train with a single fare.
Continue to explore new offers - including for 16-18-year-old ‘Our Pass’ holders – to encourage use of Starling Bank Bikes and TfGM’s Cycle Hubs, and review our Cycle Hubs provision in line with the development of wider Travel Hub plans.
Continue to use information gathered as part of the 2023 comprehensive network audit to shape future active travel network planning, including investing more in walking and wheeling infrastructure, developing a Strategic Cycle Network, piloting an approach to wayfinding on the network and progressing a policy in Access Controls. Our ongoing aim is to bring more infrastructure up to Bee Network standard, including fixing remedial issues, making it easier for people to cycle, walk and wheel.
Continue to share infrastructure updates to track how much of the active travel network is being improved. By spring 2025, 130km of segregated walking, wheeling and cycling routes were completed across the city-region. We expect that to reach 176km by 2027.
Support the delivery of the new School Travel Strategy, to help more young people walk, wheel, scoot, cycle or use public transport to get to school and help support Greater Manchester’s ambitions for improved air quality, by developing a Travel to School programme in line with the Mayor’s manifesto commitment to deliver 100 School Streets by 2028.
Work with GM’s local authorities and the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprises (VCSE) sector to create a wide range of training offers to suit local needs, open to all Greater Manchester residents in 2025. Continue to work with Bikeability to meet their ambition for every child to be able to achieve level 2 Bikeability in 2025.
(The original 10 recommendations were updated in 2025, following approval at the Bee Network Committee of the 2024 annual report and its recommendations. )
